As a cleaning means that removes unwanted substances such as toner remaining on a photoreceptor drum after a toner image has been transferred from the photoreceptor drum, a cleaning blade has a front end ridgeline portion that is slidably contacted with the photoreceptor drum to remove toner on the photoreceptor drum. Accordingly, toner has accumulated between the photoreceptor drum and the cleaning blade by continuous use. When the remaining toner is left as it is, the toner passes through between the photoreceptor drum and the cleaning blade, which may cause the toner to be scattered or may generate an abnormal image such as a formed image on which a black streak or a white streak appears.
Thus, an image forming apparatus has been disclosed which includes a driving portion capable of rotatably driving a photoreceptor drum in both forward and backward directions and which separates and removes toner attached on a front end ridgeline portion of a cleaning blade from the front end ridgeline portion by rotating the photoreceptor drum backward during no image formation, that is, in a direction opposite to a forward rotating direction during image formation (see Patent Literature 1, for example).